The five people you meet in Heaven
by princessangelwings
Summary: Death fic - with a difference. John Sheppard's adventures in Heaven. John meets five people in Heaven, some are OC some are from the show - obvously their all dead. can you guess who he'll meet?
1. Chapter 1

The Five people you meet in Heaven

The Five people you meet in Heaven

By Angelwings9

Spoilers: anything up to season 4 is fair game

Warnings: death fic- with a difference

Inspired by the excellent book (same title) by Mitch Albom- you don't need to have read it, however if you want to in the future, I apologise for ruining the experience.

XXX

This is a story about a man named John Sheppard and it begins at the end, with John dying in the sun. It might seem strange to start a story with an ending. But all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.

XXX

The last hour of John's life, was spent like most others, wandering around a backwater plant searching for allies and listening to McKay moan about his feet getting blistered. The current planet was much like dozens of other his team had set foot on. The village was a short distance from the 'gate, the trees were green and lush. The path underfoot, was dry and pitted with holes just deep enough for a boot- handy for broken ankles. There were small rocks and pebbles too, so John had to take care with each step to avoid said ankle breaking. He was also keeping an eye on Rodney, because McKay was incapable of walking, talking and looking out for pot-holes all at the same time. Geniuses, go figure.

XXX

At the time of his death, John was a tall, lean, brown haired, 40 year old man. He had spiked, gelled hair and a five o'clock shadow. He had no tattoos, nor piercings. He did have a large collection of scars, some old, some not so. He had a trick shoulder, which ached in the winter. His left knee, wounded some years ago, ached and he suspected that he'd have arthritis in a few years. He wore a black t-shirt and BDU pants. He had a tac vest protecting his upper body, filled with extra ammo, bandages and power bars. His dog tags clung to his damp chest, and pulled on his hairs as he walked.

XXX

John's job was to take care of his people. There may well have been other names for his job, names, which contradicted his description of it. If asked, this is the answer he would give; I take care of my people. And take care of his people he did. He took care of his men, by drilling into them safety protocols and training them in the art of survival. He took care of his team by watching their six, off world and at home. He took care of them when they were hurt and tried to help them when they needed solace. He made sure that his guys always came home, even if that meant he didn't sometimes. Today was one of those times.

XXX

With just 50mins of time left, John took his final drink of water. The baking sun beat down with vigour, making his tanned skin slick with sweat. He took a few long, refreshing gulps of water, before replacing the cap and marching on, towards the village.

XXX

"Sheppard, are you listening to me?"

Forty minutes until his death. John smiled at Rodney, he liked the cranky scientist. They were a strange pair, most people were surprised at John's choice of best friend, but Rodney made him smile, with his constant chatter and inflated ego. John had a lot of time for his friends. He'd do anything, for anyone of them. They were more than friends; they were his family. Ronon, Teyla and Rodney were his team, he was proud to be counted as their friend. Over the years he'd known a lot of good people most, unfortunately, were now dead. He wore a black band on his arm to remember them all by. His men trusted him; they believed him every time he said he'd never leave anyone behind. He was proud of the fact that he never had.

XXX

There was a story that went around about John. When Atlantis, their home, had been invaded a few years ago he'd defended the city on his own. He'd killed sixty enemy soldiers in one afternoon using the stargate as a weapon. New recruits were all keen to hear the story, to understand their CO better. John knew the story had been told many times, embellished in parts. He took no pride in its retelling however. He'd simply done what was needed to keep his people safe. That was his job.

XXX

"How much further?" McKay wined. Sheppard rolled his eyes. 38 minutes left.

"I don't know McKay, I've been here as often as you." He replied testily. The scorching sun was giving him a headache, exasperated by Rodney's harping.

A small avian flew overhead, ducking and weaving through the branches of the tallest trees. John smiled as the bird cooed. He loved to fly. As a child he'd sat on Ferris wheels, willing himself to take flight, relishing the feeling every time he left his stomach at the top. When he'd told his parents of his wishes they'd been disappointed that their bright son wanted to join the forces, to fly planes in other parts of the world. It had been his only dream. He was glad he'd done it even if it meant losing his family. He'd been young with his whole life ahead of him, what was an argument with his father to that? As the years rolled on, he'd regretted losing touch with his family. He never once regretted his decision to fly though.

XXX

Another story went around about John. Apparently as a soldier in Afghanistan, he'd been engaged in combat many times and once disobeyed a direct order from his CO. none of the recruits knew the reason Sheppard had disobeyed a direct order, some thought him brave for it. Others thought he'd been foolish; after all, the chain of command was there for a reason. No one, other than John and his team mates, knew the real reason. No one else asked.

XXX

With 19 minutes left alive, John sat at a long wooden table with strangers from the village discussing trade negotiations. John's P90 was clipped to his vest and he rested it on the table top. His lean, tanned arms were draped casually over the top, his finger never far from the trigger. His arms bore many scars, some deep enough to have warranted stitches at the time, others mere scratches. In truth, much of John's body suggested a survived encounter. With clothes on he looked much like any other man of his age, a few scars from a misspent youth, and a few from foolish DIY attempts. Once the clothes were removed however, his body bore many more scars than his peers. Scars of a sinister nature: bullet wounds, shrapnel scarring, even a hand-print over his heart. Without clothes he looked like a survivor from a horrific war. He was. There were a few crow's feet in the corner of his eyes, a few wrinkles appearing on his brow and when he smiled, laughter lines cut down his face. He was considered by many to be a handsome man.

XXX

Every life has one true-love snapshot. For John, it cam on a warm September night after a thunderstorm, when his local boardwalk was spongy with water. John loved thunderstorms; they always made him feel alive. He loved that boardwalk too. Much of his youth and childhood had been spent there, riding the Ferris wheel over and over. She wore a yellow cotton dress with a pink Alice-band in her soft, brown hair. John didn't say much. He was so nervous he felt as if his tongue were glued to his teeth. They rode the Ferris wheel and he bought her cotton candy. He won an oversized stuffed bear for her by knocking plates down with a baseball. She said she had to go before her parents got angry, so he walked her home and they kissed chastely on her doorstep.

That was the snapshot. For the rest of his life, whenever he thought of Nancy (which became less and less over the years), John would see that moment. Her standing at the door, waving over her shoulder to him, her dark hair falling over one eye, and he would always feel the same burst of love. Love of innocence. That night he came home and woke his brother. He told him he'd met the girl he was going to marry.

"Go to sleep, John." His brother groaned.

He used to think about her a lot. Not so much now. She was like a wound beneath an old bandage, and he had grown used to the bandage.

Sixteen minutes to live.

XXX

No story sits by itself. Sometimes stories meet at corners and sometimes they cover one another completely, like stones beneath a river. The end of John's story was touched by another seemingly innocent story, days earlier - a cloudy, over cast day when a young man arrived on this world with three of his colleagues. They'd come, unbeknown to the villagers and hidden in some old caves, which ran under the centre of the village. They'd only stayed a night to evade some smugglers chasing them. They'd built a small fire and when they went, it was Nic's job to put the fire out - to eliminate the evidence. Nic, being in a rush to leave, stamped the fire out and ran to catch up his friends. The fire was not out.

XXX

Fourteen minutes until his death. John wiped his brow with the back of his left hand. The warmth of the sun had baked the ground so much, that it seemed to John that heat was coming from the soil and dirt, as well as the sky. He spared a glace at Teyla who was chatting with the village's leader. He excused himself, and ignoring worried glances from his teammates, he strolled over to a water buck, gathered the collected rain water into his hands and splashed his face and neck. A sigh escaped his slightly parted lips.

XXX

Twelve minutes left.

"Scuse me."

A young girl, maybe eight years old, stood before him blocking his view of the dirt track, which led to the stargate. She had blond curls and wore a simple summer dress in cream.

"Scuse me," she said again. "What's your name?"

John sighed and smiled down at her. "John, you are?" he said.

"John, uh hum. My names Applice." She bit on her lower lip for a moment, pensively before asking, "Can you play with me?"

"Not really kido, I'm supposed to be over there, talking about trade and such."

"Oh, that's too bad. Later?"

John looked up, as if thinking about her question and then replied with hopeful honesty, "Sure why not, if there's time."

"Yessss!" the little girl said, slapping her hands. She ran off and John walked slowly back toward the negotiation table.

XXX

How do people choose their final words? Do they realise their gravity? Are they fated to be wise?

By his 40th birthday, John Sheppard had lost nearly everyone he'd cared about, one way or another. Some died young, and some had been given a chance to grow old (naturally) before a disease or accident took them away. At their funerals, John listened as mourners recalled their final conversations. _"It's as if he knew he was going to die…"_ some would say.

John never believed that. As far as he could tell, when your time came, it came, and that was that. You might say something smart on your way out, but you might just as easily say something stupid.

For the record, John's final words would be "Get back!"

XXX

Here are the sounds of John's last minutes on earth: birds squawking, the earth rumbling, and the crackle of fire. And this, "Oh my God, we are so dead!"

John was automatically on alert at Rodney's words. The scientist was busy examining the LSD in his hand and pointing to the fissure that had just cracked open along the village floor. John unfolded himself from the chair at the table and took stock of the scene around him. People were screaming, running into their homes for protection. He made a snap decision to help, the ground was shaking, the crack widening and smoke and heat were poring from it like a volcano. He rallied his team, handed out instruction and orders, to get as many people as far from the scene as they could. Through the 'gate would be preferable. For all John knew they were standing on the caldera of a super-volcano. Of course, the falling, burning coal mine shafts were a little less dramatic, although just as frightening.

He joined his team in helping people to escape. Many were reluctant to leave their homes, unaware as they were, that their entire village was about to collapse into the ground. The earth gave an almightily tear and four building fell into the crater of flame and smoke, in the middle of the village. "Get Back!" shouted John, as he pulled an elderly gentleman to his feet.

It was then, that he saw her. The last face of his life. She was sprawled on the floor, on the other side of the widening crack. Her nose was running, tears filled her eyes and she was screaming for her Mommy. Without a thought for his own personal safety, John jumped the 5 foot, smoking divide. The heat was unbearable, and he could smell the hairs on his arm being singed away. The little girl, Amy? Annie? Was crying for her Mother, her little chest rising and falling rhythmically, her body frozen in fear. He grabbed the child in his arms and prepared to jump the gap. As he bent his knees and leapt for life, the heat and smoke impaired his vision; he could not see the other side. He could not see his friends calling to him.

In those final moments, John seemed to hear the whole world: his friends' shouts, the little girl crying in his arms, a rush of wind, a low, ugly sound that he realised was his own voice blasting through his chest. He threw the little girl as far as he could in the direction he hoped was her salvation. He half flew and half stumbled through the air, in a graceless arch. He felt two hands in his own, two small hands.

A stunning impact.

A blinding flash of light.

And then, nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

Today is John's Birthday

Today is John's Birthday

_It's the 1960's, a crowded hospital in a small pleasant, Oceanside, town. John's father, Patrick, smokes cigarettes in the waiting room, where other fathers are also smoking. The nurse enters with a clipboard. She ca__lls his name and Paddy is roused from his thoughts. The other men blow smoke, as he raises his hand._

"_Congratulations," the nurse says._

_He follows her down the hallway to the newborns' nursery. His shinny, polished shoes clap across the floor. _

"_Wait here," she tells him._

_Through the glass, he sees her check the numbers of the cribs. She moves past one, not his, another, not his, another, not his, another, not his._

_She stops, there, beneath the blue blanket. A tiny head covered in a blue cap. She checks her clipboard again, just to be sure, and then points. _

_The father breathes heavily, nods his head. For a moment, his face seems to crumble, like a bridge collapsing into a river. Then he smiles. His. _

XXX

John saw nothing of his final moments, nothing of his friends crushed faces as they realised his fate. He saw nothing of the village tumbling into the fire on top of him, the people running towards the 'gate, or the mindless panic overcoming the children. In the stories about life after death, the soul often floats above the good-bye moment, hovering over the police at car crashes, or clinging like a spider to hospital-room ceilings. These are the souls of those given a second chance. John has already had all his second chances… and his third and forth. He was not going to have a second chance this time.

XXX

Where…?

_Where…? _

The sky was a misty, opaque gold, then a deep turquoise, then the brightest lime that would put the earthy fruits to shame. John was floating, his strong tanned arms extended, just as they were when he was a child imagining himself to be a bird, soaring high over the town.

Where…?

The ground was burning, caving in. He remembered that. The little girl – Aimee? Anna? – She was crying. He remembered that too. He remembered the searing heat, smelling the hairs on the back of his hands burn. He remembered her weight in his arms and leaping across flame and smoke. He remembered knowing he wasn't going to reach the other side and throwing her to safety. He remembered two small hands in his.

Then what?

Did her throw her far enough?

Did someone catch her?

_Did he save her? _

John could only picture it at a distance, as if it happened years ago. The memories already fading, becoming clouded and wispy. Stranger still, he could not feel any emotions that should have gone with the memory. He felt calm, collected, almost contented, like a small child hugging its mother.

_Where…?_

The sky around him swirled and changed colour, this time a chocolate brown, midnight blue and elephant grey that he momentarily associated with his pride and joy, Jumper one.

_Did I save her?_

_Did she live?_

_Where…?_

… _Is my worry?_

_Where is my pain?_

That was what was missing. Every hurt he'd ever suffered every ache he'd ever endured – it was as gone as an expired breath. Every scar seemed to disappear along with the memory of the pain he'd undergone. He could feel no agony. He could not feel sad. His consciousness felt all smoky, hazy - it reminded him of the shadows the Wraith make you see. His only state of being was calm, serene. Below him, his arms still stretched out, the colours changed again. The colours swirled. Water. An ocean. He was now floating on top of a vast yellow sea. He could hear the waves lapping at his ear, his head bobbing ever so slightly. Now it was fuschia. He thought it strange that he could not hear any birds. He'd always associated the ocean with birds ever since he was a young boy. Now it was deep blood red. He began to sink beneath the waves, he didn't struggle, his limbs were too heavy to lift, and he couldn't seem to muster enough _worry_ to care. He felt no fear as he sank. He was under the water; no breath escaped his pert lips. Everything was silent. The colours continued to swish and twirl around him.

_Where is my worry?_

_Where is my pain? _

XXX

_Today is John's Birthday_

_He is five years old._

_His __parents have organised a large party for him in the garden. Friends from school and his brother and cousins all play on the bouncy castle, while stuffing their faces with cake, sweets and crisps. John runs around playing hide and seek with his aunty. She lets him win and give him an all encompassing hug when he finds her hiding behind a tree. She smells of orange peel and cinnamon. The adults are drinking punch and some, like his aunt, are playing games with the kids._

_Aunty Clara takes his hand and whispers in his ear. She has a surprise for him. He follows h__er eagerly to her beat-up Chevy; no one notices them leave the festivities. She turns the music up loud and they sing pop songs together as they drive, bobbing and weaving though the traffic. She lets him put his arm out the window, to feel the air rushing past. She stops the car at the old Ruby pier, near the boardwalk. Her face is flushed pink with excitement and he grins at her. Aunty Clara was always fun to be around, she sometimes got into trouble with his mother, but she never seemed to care. She took his hand, squeezed it and whispered "I love you Johnny," in his ear. She always whispered the important stuff, that way he knew how special the message was. _

_They ran along Ruby pier until she found the perfect ride. The Ferris wheel. John had never been on the Ferris wheel before; his father hated rides and his mother though John was too little. Aunty Clara thought differently. She paid at the booth and then lifted John into a car. He was shivering with excitement; Clara held his hand and told him it would be fun. He believed her. The ride cranked to life and they rose higher and higher until they reached the top. John was sure he could see India, the view was so clear. The Ferris wheel descended and his stomach turned summersaults as he left his tummy behind. He squealed with pleasure and Clara laughed. Around and around they went. He didn't want it to ever end. _

_When the ride finally ground to a halt, the handsome man with no shirt on helped them out of the car. John decided there and then that he wanted to fly. _

"_Was that fun?" Clara laughed, she already knew the answer, the cry of ecstasy was more than enough. "Come on, we'd better get back." _

_They sang songs at an ear-bleeding volume all the way back to the house. John ran from the car, eager to tell his brother where he'd been, turning back to give Aunty Clara a hug and whisper, "Thank you," in her ear. _

_Aunty Clara didn't come round to the house as much after that. John knew his mother was angry with her sister for letting him on the Ferris wheel. It wasn't until he was older that he considered that Aunty Clara may have been drunk. _

XXX

The Arrival

John awoke in a teacup.

It was a part of some old amusement park ride – a large teacup, made of dark, polished wood, with a cushioned seat and a steel-hinged door. John's arms and legs dangle over the edges. The sky continues to change colour, from chocolate brown to ruby red. His instinct was to reach for his gun. He kept it by his bed since coming to Atlantis; he loved the city but wasn't foolish enough to feel completely safe and secure. He pulled himself up and was pleasantly surprised when his shoulder didn't ache, nor did his knee try to buckle. His muscles were often stiff in the morning, especially after a mission when adrenaline pumped through his veins and his team had to run at break-neck speed back to the 'gate. He pulled himself up and out of the teacup, stumbled and landed awkwardly on the ground, where he was struck by three quick thoughts.

Firstly, he felt wonderful.

Second, he was all alone.

Third, he was on Ruby Pier.

It was a different Ruby pier to the one he remembers as a child. There were canvas tents and vacant grassy sections and so few obstructions you could see the mossy breakwater out in the ocean. The colours of the attractions were post-box red and creamy white – each ride had it own wooden ticket booth and hand painted signs. John blinked hard. This Ruby pier was nothing like to one he grew up with. His Ruby pier was packed with people, the rides were fast and furious with neon lights and the smell of cotton candy and fairground fried food lingered in the air. This one looked like something from an old film, the 30's maybe. He imagined it would be like the one in 'chitty chitty bang bang' where Dick Van Dyke danced and cut peoples hair. The teacup, he noticed, was part of a primitive attraction called Spin-O-Rama. He saw a magnificent sight, jutting into the sky was the original Ferris wheel- in pristine white paint. It had been torn down before John was even born, but its replacement had an old photograph of its predecessor framed and stuck by the booth.

John tried to yell, but his voice was raspy air. He mouthed 'hey!' but nothing came from his throat. He did a cursory check of his body, found it to be the same as that morning, except it felt better, much better than he had in years. He ran along the pier searching for someone, anyone. He ran past a 'bait and tackle' stand and a 'bathing suit rental'. He ran past a ride called 'The Dipsy Doodle'. He ran down the heart of the old midway, where benches were positioned, where old couples could sit and rest. He ran to the end of the pier, arms outstretched like a plane. The child inside him relished the freedom and willed his 'wings' to take flight. He stopped at the protective rail and looked out at the foamy sea.

He heard a cough behind him, turned and stared, wide eyed, at the old man before him. He wore grubby overalls, covered with grease, and a brown flat cap. He was a sturdy looking fellow with a barrel chest and muscular arms. He sat on a wooden bench looking at John, his shining blue eyes reading every expression and nuance on John's face.

"Hello, John," he said. "I've been waiting for you."


	3. Chapter 3

The First Person John Meets in Heaven

The First Person John Meets in Heaven

"Don't be afraid…" the old man said, rising slowly from the bench. He leaned lightly on an old walking stick. "Don't be afraid…"

His voice is soothing, but John can only stare. He doesn't know this man. Why was he seeing him now?

"Your body feels like a child's, right?" John nodded, dumbfounded.

"You were a child when you knew me, that's why. You start with the same feelings you had."

"_Start what?_ John thought.

The old man lifted his chin, and began walking slowly down the pier. John followed because he could think of nothing better. The pier was totally empty, almost spookily so. The beach was empty. Was the whole planet empty too?

"Tell me something," the old guy said. "Is the Whipper still 'the fastest ride on earth'?"

The Whipper had been an old, rickety roller coaster when John was a child. He'd never rode it, he was too small and then, when he was just about tall enough they pulled it down. It was replaced by a larger, faster and louder coaster, 'The speeding bullet'.

John shook his head no.

"Ah well," the old guy said. "I thought as much, they were always replacing rides with newer, faster ones. Things don't change here. And there's none of that peering down from the clouds lark, I'm afraid."

_Here?_ John thought.

The old guy smiled as if he'd heard John's unspoken question. He touched John's shoulder and he felt a surge of warmth filter through his body. His thoughts came spilling out like sentences.

_How did I die?_

"An accident," old man said.

_How long have I been dead?_

"Who knows? A minute. An hour. A thousand years."

_Where am I?_

The old man pursed his lips, then repeated John's question thoughtfully. "Where are you?"

He turned and extended an arm. All at once the rides at the ancient Ruby pier sprang to life. The Ferris wheel spun, the Dodgem's smacked into each other, the old Whipper clanked uphill and the carousel horses bobbed up and down to the Wurlitzer organ.

"Where do you think?" he asked, "Heaven."

XXX

No way! John shakes his head violently, his dark brown hair, waving with the action. NO! The old man seems amused.

"No? It can't be heaven?" he said. "Why? Because this is where you grew up?"

John mouthed the word Yes.

"Ah." The old man nodded. "Well, people often belittle the place where they were born. But heaven can be found in the most unlikely corners. Heaven itself has many steps. This, for me, is the second. For you it's the first."

He led John through the park, passing cigar shops and concession stands.

Heaven? John thought, Ridiculous. He'd not been to Ruby pier for years, it was an amusement park, that's all, a place to scream and get wet. The thought that this was some kind of blessed resting place was absurd. He tried to speak again and this time heard a small grunt from his chest. The old man turned.

"Your voice will come. We all go through the same thing. You cannot talk when you first arrive." He smiled, "it helps you to listen."

XXX

"There are five people you meet in heaven," he said, "each of us was in your life for a reason. You may not know the reason at the time and that is what heaven is for. For understanding your life."

John looked confused.

"People think heaven is a paradise garden, a place where you can float on clouds and laze in rivers and mountains. But scenery without solace is meaningless.

"This is the greatest gift God can give you: to understand what happened in your life. To have it explained. It's the peace you have been searching for."

John coughed, he was sick of being silent.

"I am your first person, John. When I died, my life was illuminated by five others, and then I came here to wait for you, to stand in your line, to tell you my story, which becomes part of yours. There will be others for you, too. Some you knew, others, like me that you didn't. But they all crossed your path before they died. And more importantly, they altered it forever."

John managed to push a sound up from his chest.

"What…?" he finally croaked.

"What… killed… you?" his voice broke through like a baby chick breaking the egg.

The old man looked a little surprised but he smiled at John.

"You did," he said.

XXX

_He is seven__ years old. _

_It__ is a Sunday afternoon at Ruby pier. Picnic tables are set along the boardwalk which overlooks the long meandering white beach. John enjoys collecting shells from this beach and riding the Ferris wheel to take in the view of the small, lazy town. There is chocolate cake with blue wax candles and cups of fizzy orange. The pier workers are milling about. By the time John is a teenager he will know most of them as friends. During the summer between school and college he will work on the Ferris wheel, helping children get aboard and helping old Joe with maintenance. _

_John's father sits to one side, watching his sons playing games; the perpetual look of disappointment which adorned his face for most of John's adult life is not yet present. For now he is happy and contented at his son's birthday party. _

_John is wearing his birthday present, a red cowboy hat and toy holster. He runs around the pier, pulling his gun on friends and family, shouting, "Bang, bang!"_

"_C'mere boy," Pete Hewitt beckons from a bench. _

"_Bang, bang," goes John, but he walks towards Pete with a grin on his little face. Pete is a mystery to John, he's a friend of John's dad, he comes to the house sometimes for drinks and dinner. To John, he smells funny, like cough medicine. _

"_Come here! Let me do your birthday bumps!" he says._

_Suddenly Pete's large hands are under John's armpits and he is hoisted up, then flipped over and dangled by his feet. John's hat falls of. _

"_Careful Pete!" John's mother yells. John's father looks up, smirks, then returns to watching his other son playing._

"_Ho, ho. I got him," Pete says. "Now, one birthday bump for each year."_

_Pete lowers John gently, until his head brushes the floor_

"_One!"_

_Pete lifts John back up. The others join in, laughing. They yell, "Two! … Three!"_

_Upside down John is not sure who is who. His head is getting heavy as blood rushes downward._

"_Four! … Five! … Six!… seven!" John is flipped right-side up and put down. Everybody claps. John reaches for his hat, then stumbles over. He gets up, wobbles to Pete and punches him in the arm. _

"_What's that for little man?" Pete says. Everyone laughs some more. John turns and runs away as fast as his little legs can carry him. _

_He never saw the car. But he remembers the blood. He stood transfixed as his mother ran to him, scooped him up, trying to conceal the mess that was once a brave old man. He remembers hands around his waist, strong arms, pushing him away. _

_The old man. It took a few moments for John's shocked mind to understand what had happened. It took people screaming and running for help. It took the wail of the ambulance to hammer it home to him. _

_The old man had saved him. Pushed him out of the way and in doing so, given up his life. Years later when John applies for the air force, the images of that day will flash through his mind._

XXX

Realisation dawns on John. The old man who saved his life. He knows nothing about the old man, not even his name. The nameless, kind old man who had saved his life on his seventh birthday stood before him, a sly grin on his ruddy face. "You remember then do you?" he asked.

He lowers himself into a bench and motions for John to sit with him. John obediently sits, his leg shaking up and down nervously. "I didn't mean to…" he begins. He feels like he did that day, guilty for running in front of the car. Frightened by the look on his father's face, the worry and fear on his mother's; she knows she nearly lost her son.

"Let me begin at the start. My name is Eddie. I worked on this pier for over fifty years, I was the maintenance guy. Before me, the job was my fathers. I didn't have a very good relationship with my dad; he could be mean and set in his ways. I basically grew up on Ruby pier. As a child I played and helped my father. Do you know why it's called Ruby pier?"

John shook his head.

"It was named after Ruby; she was the original owner's wife. Nice lady too." He smiled wistfully.

"Anyway, we were poor when I was young, not that we ever became rich. I had a brother and went to school like any other kid. I was a bit of a tough-nut, you know?"

John nodded. He couldn't really see the point of this, but found Eddie's voice soothing nonetheless.

"In the war I was captured in the Philippines, my leg was shot up, when we escaped, I never was the same." He looked at John expectantly.

John whispers in accord, "Yeah, wars are like that."

"During the war, I killed a girl. I didn't mean to, you understand. We'd just escaped and we were consumed with rage and adrenaline. A thirst for revenge for the torture we'd suffered overcame us all. We set fire to every building there." Eddie looked sideways at John, who nodded his understanding. Revenge he understood.

"She was in one of the burning huts, I thought I saw her, tried to save her, but my CO shot me in the leg to save me from myself." He paused thoughtfully.

"A darkness, a kind of shadow followed me around for the rest of my life. Do you understand?" John could only nod. He did understand, more than most. He'd felt the same darkness, the same shadow follow him. Haunt him.

Eddie abruptly changed the subject; he'd said what had needed to be.

"My wife and I, god was she beautiful, we never had kids." he looked away from John to look at the ocean with a sad sort of smile. "I guess it was never meant to be, but I did have many children who were not mine."

John looked confused.

"Ruby Pier. The children there, you, your brother and cousins, you were like my children. I fixed the rides and kept you safe. That was my job. Funny, I had to die before I realised how significant my life had been."

John smiled, he vaguely remembered Eddie Maintenance, he always wore dirty blue overall and carried a cane. He never knew that it was Eddie that had saved him. The entire day and the events that followed had been a blur. By the time he worked maintenance on the pier himself, old Eddie was long forgotten by the other workers.

"I had to come here to understand my life, same as you. I spent years hating this place, would you believe? Man, I really, really resented the way my life turned out. Not any more though. I understand it now you see? That's why you're here. You need to understand your life too."

John looked slightly aghast at the idea of understand his life. He'd spent much of his trying to forget. He wasn't at all sure if he wanted to have it explained to him.

"My whole life I wanted to be someone. I wanted to be important and I never thought that I was. I was wrong. I saved lives you know. I prevented accidents."

"My life was significant but so too was my death." Eddie stared at John meaningfully.

John looked doubtfully back.

"Don't you see? That's why we're here, on this pier."

John glanced around, "This is heaven you said."

"Yes, but this is not _your_ heaven. It's mine."


	4. Chapter 4

The first lesson

"What about justice?" John asked. Eddie and John had sat in quiet contemplation for a while now, looking out at the sea, the breeze dancing over their skin.

"Ah, you wanna know what you have to pay right? Your punishment?" John nodded.

"I asked my first the same question. He told me 'Edward, you are here so I can teach you something. All the people you meet here have one thing to teach you." He looked at John, reached his old hand up and gave John's shoulder a squeeze.

John looked unsure so Eddie carried on, "there are no random acts. We are all connected; you cannot separate one life from another anymore than you can separate a breeze from the wind."

John shook his head, "But I ran out into the road! It was my stupidity; you should never have needed to save me! You died on my account! That's not fair!"

Eddie held out his hand, "Fairness," he said, "does not govern life and death. If it did, no good person would ever die young."

He rolled his palm upwards and suddenly they were standing in a cemetery behind a small group of mourners. A priest was reading from the Bible. John could not see faces, only the backs of hats and dresses and suit coats.

"My funeral," Eddie explained. "Look at the mourners. Some did not even know me well, yet they came. Why? Did you ever wonder? Why people gather when others die? Why people feel they should?

"It's because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives are intersected. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed.

"You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightening strikes a minute after you're gone, or a plane crashes that you might have been on. When someone falls ill and you don't. We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers and one grows. Births and deaths are part of a whole."

"It's why we are drawn to babies…" he turned to look at the mourners, "And to funerals."

John looks again at the gravesite gathering. He wonders what his funeral was like. If he even had one. Did his friends take his body back to Atlantis for it to then be moved to Earth? Would he be buried in the same graveyard as his father: the family plot? Or would he be buried on the mainland? He had no will and so no final say from beyond the grave to inform his friends of his wishes. He didn't really have any preference, mind.

"I'm still not sure I understand all of this," John whispered. "What good came from your death?"

"You lived. With my death, I saved your life."

"But we barely knew each other. I was essentially a stranger!" John exclaimed.

"My first told me, 'Strangers, Edward, are just family you haven't met yet'. Do you think that's true?" He didn't wait for an answer, "I do."

He shook away the memories and continued, "Your right John, I didn't know who you were, or what you'd accomplish in your lifetime. I can't pretend to know everything about your life now, like I said, there none of that looking down from the clouds lark."

John was about to say something, to deny that his life had been worth Eddie's, when Eddie's face cracked into a huge smile and laughter poured from his lips.

"What's so funny?" John could not see what could possibly be amusing at a time like this.

"You don't get it but you will. It's not a matter of whose life is worth what. I died so that you could live. You gave my life meaning and I yours. How many lives have you saved? How many choices have you made differently because of me?" he silenced John's answer with a wave of his hand. The answers were irrelevant. It didn't matter if John had save one or one million lives. It didn't matter if John had taken life.

XXX

With that Eddie pulled John to him. Instantly John felt everything that Eddie had felt in his life rushing into him, swimming in his body, the loneliness, the darkness, his death. It slid into John like a drawer being closed.

"I'm leaving," Eddie whispered into his ear. John felt a rush of memories, the last person to say that, like that had been his Aunty Clara. "This step of heaven is over for me. There are others for you to meet."

"Wait," cried John, pulling back, "Just tell me one thing. Did I save her? The little girl? Is she alive?"

Eddie did not answer. John slumped. "Then my death was a waste, just like my life."

"No life is a waste, John." Eddie said calmly. "The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone."

He stepped back towards the gravesite and smiled. As he did his skin changed, his hair regained its colour, the wrinkled smoothed. He stood before John: a young man.

"Wait!" John yelled, but he was suddenly whisked into the air, away from the cemetery, soaring above a great grey ocean. Below he saw the rooftops of the old Ruby pier.

Then he was gone.

XXX

Tuesday, 3pm

Back on the planet, Rodney stands silently. Chaos reigns around him, Teyla is crying, running towards him. Ronon is feverishly herding people towards the stargate. There it no time to morn. He saw John fall; saw the life disappear on his LSD. The fire still blazes, the heat is rising up and singeing the tree tops. The earth shakes slightly, and Rodney knows the ground will cave under his feet. He just doesn't care. He friend is gone.

Teyla grabs his hand, "Rodney we must move!" she shout over the din of the panicked people.

"Move McKay!" Ronon is there. He looks angry; Rodney knows how much he wants to relive the last few minutes, to change it. Ronon's face softens, he takes Rodney's shoulder and says "Come on; don't let his death be in vein."

And that more than anything gets Rodney moving.

He sees a group of children crying, he goes to them and helps to lead them to safety. They jog through the trees and back up the dirt track, stumbling on the rough terrain. In the distance he sees the villagers pushing to get through the stargate, but it shuts down long before Rodney, Teyla, Ronon and their group of survivors can get there.

"Where'd they go?!" the remaining villagers look even more panicked, their people have left them behind. There is no way to find out where they've gone. Give him a few hours and sure he'd probably be able to figure something out. But they did not have a few hours.

"We can't leave them here," Teyla implores, as she kneels to see to a child's cut face.

"We'll take em with us," Ronon solves the problem and begins dialling home.

It's a testament to the shock he feels that Rodney offers no argument to this plan. He can still see the look of determination on John's face as he jumped over the ravine of fire. His heart aches in places he never knew he had. As he steps through the 'gate he make a promise. "We'll come back for you. No one gets left behind."

XXX

Today is John's Birthday

_From his bedroom he can smell the beefsteak and sausages grilling on the BBQ outside. He lies facedown on his bed reading a comic book. He is 17 today, too old for such things but he likes reading the adventures of Spiderman, the Fantastic Four and Batman. _

"_John! John, are you gonna come down for dinner?" his mother calls him from the patio. He rolls off the bed, puts his comic back on the pile and leans out the window. _

"_Yes Mom, I'm on my way!" he calls down to her. She looks up, her flyaway brown hair, flecked with grey is caught in the breeze and she smiles loving at him. He stares out across the garden, where family members' mill around talking sports and gossip. He looks further, to the field where his horse is kept. The stallion is 18 hands, chestnut brown and called Dobbin. His Mother bought it for his 15__th__ birthday. He loves that old horse, the way it lets him feed it apples and comb its mane._

_Naturally his father disapproves. He thinks John should be like his brother and have a shiny car and lots of girlfriends at the house. John likes girls of course, he's just more comfortable taking to Dobbin. He feels the horse understands him. Understand the lonely ache in his heart. _

_He wanders downstairs and grabs a beer from the side. It is his birthday after all. His father doesn't approve of his son's getting drunk at other peoples house, but will gladly keep the fridge stocked up, so they can have a beer in the safety of the home; with his dad watching. _

_John sneaks up behind his mother and wraps his arms around her slim waist. He kisses her neck, smelling her perfume and she giggles as she turns the steaks over. "You funny thing," she smiles. She notices the beer in his hand, a shadow crosses her features but she soon schools her face to hide her disapproval. "Don't have too many of those, John" she warns._

"_Don't worry Mom." He releases her waist and goes to sit in the sun next to his brother. _

"_Having a good day so far?" his brother asks pleasantly. _

_He thinks for a moment, "Yeah. I wish Clara were here." John had always been a favourite of his Aunts. Something his brother was always jealous off. _

"_Come on John, you know Mom won't let her, not after Thanksgiving." He remembered it well. She had turned up late and smelling of booze. His mother had taken her aside and they argued for a long while in the kitchen. John's father had simply turned the volume on the TV up. _

_Clara had left the house in floods of tears and John mother refused to speak to or about her sister for the rest of the holiday season. John wanted to contact Clara but was too afraid of what his mother would say if he did. _

_Their father interrupted the boys musing by slapping John across the shoulders as he spoke to Uncle Pete. _

"_Yep, and John got a grade A, for his maths paper! His teacher says he has a real gift, could have an accountant on our hands, eah John?" John nodded solemnly. He doesn't want to be an accountant or a lawyer or any of the thousands of things his dad wants him to do. _

_He was saved from answering by his Mother calling, "Come on now boys, foods ready!" _

_XXX_

_Later, when the food has been eaten and the guests are gone, he stands outside by his horse stroking Dobbin's hair. He tenses when he hears footfalls signal someone's arrival. He hopes it's not his dad to talk more about college and jobs he wants John to do. _

"_Hiya Johnny." A small voice whispers to him. _

"_Clara!" he turns and hugs his Aunt with gusto. She wraps her arms around his back, one hand in his hair stroking in that soothing way he's used to. She smells nice, of clean cloths and toothpaste. He's glad to note there's not a hint of alcohol on her breath. Hope flutters in his chest, he wants his Mother and Aunt to make up, so he can have his family the way he likes it. The two sisters have been arguing back and forth for as long as John can remember, mostly about Clara's choice of lifestyle. _

"_I'm sorry I missed your birthday, hun." She says shyly. He's never seen Clara like this. She hardly ever says she's sorry. She say's it's a waste of breath, better to show someone you're sorry, than to use meaningless words. _

"_It's okay. You didn't miss much; anyway, I'll have another next year." She smiles but it doesn't reach her eyes. He starts to worry. Clara is acting very strange. "Does Mom know you're here?" he asks conversationally._

"_I don't think she'd want to see me. I don't think she'd be happy to know I'm with you now." _

"_But I am! It's my birthday and I've missed you!" _

"_World doesn't work like that I'm afraid." She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a wrapped gift. "Don't open it now." _

"_Why…?" the question dies on his lips as he realises what this it. This is goodbye._

_Clara leaned over and whispered softly in his ear, "I'm leaving." _

_He grabbed handfuls of her jacket and held her close. "Don't." he whispered back. _

_With her hands rubbing soothing circles on his back she said quietly, "I love you." Then she pulled away, kissed his cheek turned and left him there; astonished standing by his horse in the dark. _

_XXX_

_A week later he stands in a graveyard, watching as her coffin is lowered into the ground. The guilt he feels is all encompassing, he should have told someone she'd been to see him. He looks to his right and sees his mother. Her face is crumpled with misery, and a deep penetrating guilt he knows she feels because he feels it too. _

_His family is never the same again._

_XXX_

_AN: some familar faces will be apearing in the next chapter. I hope your enjoying this - if you find any typos let me know (i have no beta) R&R _


	5. Chapter 5

The second person John meets in heaven

John felt his feet touch the ground. The sky is changing again, from cobalt blue to charcoal grey, and John is now surrounded by sand. The child like limberness is gone, his body is taut. Every muscle is wound as tightly as a guitar string.

He looks around the lifeless terrain. On a nearby sand dune lay a busted tank and the rotting bones of a man dressed in layers of soft colourful fabrics. John feels the sting of sand blown into his face by the wind. The sky explodes to a flaming yellow.

Once again John ran.

He ran differently to when he ran on the pier. Now he ran in the hard measured steps of a solider. He heard thunder- no not thunder- explosions, bomb blasts. Instinctively he fell to the ground, landed on his stomach, and pulled himself along by his forearms. He wished he had his gun, and looked around for something to use as a weapon. He crawled, praying for cover. Finally his head brushed against something solid. He looked up to see a dried branch; sun bleached sticking out of the ground. A set of dog tags glistened at him in the sun, as they hung from a knot in the branch.

Blinking the sun from his eyes he fingered the tags, then scrambled backwards wildly into a hard wall of metal. He noticed more branches, more tags. He couldn't look.

He turned and dived into the open side of a downed chopper. He pulled his knees into a crouch. He tried to catch his breath. Fear had found him, even in heaven.

The name on the tags in his hand was his.

The names on the other tags belonged to his colleagues. Fellow soldiers he'd fought with. Good men, who had died when he should have saved them.

XXX

Young men go to war. Sometimes because they have to, sometime because they want to. Always they feel they are supposed to. This comes from the sad, layered stories of life, which over the centuries have seen courage confused with picking up arms, and cowardice confused with laying them down.

XXX

John went to war for none of those reasons. Not a first. He joined the military because he wanted to fly. But also, he wanted his life to have meaning. He could have flown commercial planes across the world, for holiday makers who went abroad to see the sights and take photos to show friends and family. He joined the military because the USAF would let him fly and give his life meaning. It also, quite handily, let him escape the life his father wanted for him.

XXX

When John returned from college and told his parents he'd enlisted, his father was on the phone immediately to try and reverse it. His mother stood there, the glass in her hand fell from her grasp and she calmly left the room. The juice spread on the thick carpet and smelled bittersweet to John's nose.

"It's no use Dad, I've already signed up." His father sighed and put the phone back in its cradle.

"Why John? Why? Do you have a death wish? Has your Mother not been through enough?" his father scrubbed a hand across his face and glared at John in that all too familiar, disappointed way. John didn't miss the dig about Aunty Clara. His father had never liked her.

"I want to fly." He stated simply. There was no use trying to explain his reasons fully to his dad, he'd never understand.

"What kind of a reason is that?! You've got brains son, you could be head of the family business if you wanted in a few years, huh? Take over for me?" Patrick Sheppard looked desperately at his son, willing him to change his mind.

"I'm not like you dad. I want my life to mean something."

"What, and my life means nothing does it?!" Patrick rose from his chair and stalked over to where his son stood and struck him across the face.

John dropped to one knee, rose, looked his dad in the eye and said, "That's not what I meant." He sighed, "I knew you'd never understand." He looked away to see his mother stood in the door way, her hand over her mouth, her shoulders shaking as she wept.

"Then explain it to me, goddamnit!" he gripped his son's shoulders hard and shook as he shouted. John struggled and squirmed to break free of his Dad's hold.

"Get off me!" His mother roused from her weeping, ran over and clawed at her husband's fingers. Patrick let go, and John stumbled and fell to the floor, his face shining with tears.

Patrick whispered, "Okay," to his wife, and she bent down to help her eldest son off the floor. Patrick addressed his recalcitrant son, "John, I want you to listen to me. If you do this then you are no longer my son."

Susan Sheppard gasped at her husband, "No, Patrick!"

"It's alright mom." John stood defiantly in front of his father. "I've made my decision. I want to fly and I will. You can either accept that or disown me. That's your choice."

John heart beat against his ribs waiting for his father's answer. "No, John. It's your choice."

The disappointment clawed at John's throat, he was really being disowned for daring to defy his father's wishes. So be it. He wiped his eyes angrily with his sleeve, picked his bag up from the floor, and walked towards the front door. His mother grabbed his arm, "No, no don't do this. Patrick! John please, your Father doesn't mean it! Do you?!" She aimed a fiery glare at her stubborn spouse.

John turned and saw his own resolve reflected back on Patrick Sheppard's face. Maybe they weren't so different. "Please," his mother begged, fresh tears streaming down her face.

"Goodbye Mom," he whispered in her ear. He opened the door, walked purposefully to his car and got in. his brother waved sadly from an upstairs window as he drove away.

XXX

Young men go to war, sometimes because they have to, sometime because they want to. A few days later John packed a duffle bag at his Girlfriend Nancy's house, and left his home behind.

XXX

The explosions stopped. The gun fire in the distance ceased. John, shivering, hot and sweaty, sat in the downed chopper, exhaled a long, hard breath. He opened his eyes and looked out at the veritable field of sun-bleached branches, dog tags, helmets and forgotten weapons. He remembered why soldiers did this; it marked the graves of the dead. He done it himself, when there'd been no chance of getting the body home. They always tried of course, but sometimes it just wasn't possible. Sometimes there wasn't much of a body left. You took a tag, any personal items and buried your comrades as best you could before moving on, else be buried yourself. Or worse, be left in the sun to rot.

He looked out, past the field of graves, towards a burning town in the distance. He could hear the rhythmic roar and wine of choppers flying overhead. His chest tightened like a man who'd just had bad news broken. This place. He knew it. More than any other it haunted his dreams.

"Smallpox," a voice suddenly said.

John spun.

"Yep, typhoid, tetanus, yellow fever, malaria." The voice came from the co-pilots chair in front of John. He could see a shoulder and pant leg covered with desert combats.

"I never did find out what yellow fever was. Hell. I never met anyone who had it." The voice was strong and familiar, with a slight southern drawl. John remembered that the drawl got thicker with beer. There was a gravely edge to it too; like a man who'd been shouting for hours.

"I got all those shots for all those diseases and I died anyways, healthy as a horse. Well, except for the leg. That was less healthy, remember Shep?"

The man turned and grinned at John, his eyes shining mischievously.

John stood on shaky legs and walked over and sat in the pilot's chair. He looked over and said, "Sure, I remember that, Holland."

XXX

They had served in the Air Force together. Holland was one of John's subordinates, a Captain to his Major. John felt a deep responsibility to all those he served with, especially those who took his orders. They had fought in the Gulf war together and again in Afghanistan. When Holland's chopper had gone down, John ignored the Brass and took his own chopper on a SAR. John found his friend, deep in enemy territory, with a banged up leg and internal bleeding neither one could predict. Holland died in John's arms not even a mile from base.

Holland reached into his combats and pulled out a pack of smokes. "Are you still resisting the evils of tobacco?"

John nodded. He'd never smoked, even when many of his fellow soldiers had. He supposed there was little point to resisting now though.

Holland lit his cigarette and a wisp of smoke blew across John's face and assaulted his nostrils. "They explain the rules to you, Shep?"

John looked out of the cracked and bloodied windshield, at the endless wasteland of sand and sun. "I'm dead."

"You got that right. Guess even you had to run out of lives sooner or later."

"You're dead too, you know." John said a friendly bite to his voice.

"That I am. Died in your arms as I recall." Holland glanced over and gave John a grateful, gracious smile.

"And you're… my second person?"

The Captain held his cigarette between thumb and forefinger. He smiled as if to say, _"Can you believe you get to smoke up here?"_ then he took a long drag and blew out a white snake of cloud.

"Betcha didn't expect me, huh?"

XXX

John learned many things in his time with the military. Some he wished he didn't know. He learned to fly Apache, Cobra, Osprey and Jumpers. He learned to listen to his ride, to understand its nuances and when to abandon his attempts to fix his it. He learned to shave with cold water. He learned to take orders. He learned his defiant streak went deeper than his father could ever have guessed. He learned to be careful when shooting from a foxhole, lest you hit a tree and wound yourself with deflected shrapnel.

He learned to march. He learned to stand to attention. He learned to fight with his bare hands and how to cross a rope-bridge while carrying, all at once, an overcoat, a gas mask, a P90, a handgun, a backpack, and a friend over his shoulder. He learned to drink the worst coffee ever known to man, and how to enjoy it.

He learned to speak a few other languages, not fluently, but enough to get you by. He learned he was good at listening to overlords practice their English. He learned to smoke cigars offered by overlords, because refusal was seen as an insult, and that insulted overlords were not nice to their American 'guests'. He learned to spit at great distance.

He learned the nervous cheer of a soldiers first survived combat, when the men slap each other and smile as if its over – we can go home now!- and he learned the sinking depression of a soldiers second combat, when he realised the fighting does not stop at one battle, there is more and more after that. He learned flying was worth it.

He learned to whistle though his teeth. He learned to sleep on rocky earth and how to survive a sand storm. He learned that burning oil smells really, really bad, and sticks to your hair and skin like molasses. He learned to say 'hello' by raising his right hand, not his left, for fear of insulting the natives and getting shot at. He learned that a man's bones really do look white when they burst through the skin.

He learned that home is not necessarily where you grew up, or even a place. He learned to hate bugs with a passion. He learned that sometimes nightmares are better than reality. He learned to pray quickly. He learned that sometimes you are sitting eating breakfast with a buddy and later that day flying their remains back to base, in a plastic bag loaded into your chopper. He learned that even the strongest, most muscular men, vomit on their shoes.

He learned how to take a prisoner, although he never learned how to be one, even though he got a lot of practice. He learned that sometime the past can haunt you, both literally and figuratively. He learned that scientists are not really good with guns. He learned to have his ass kicked by alien warriors. He learned that the braver man was the one who knew the consequences and fought anyway. He learned to have a family made of misfits and outcasts. He learned that together they weren't misfits or outcasts. He learned that he will never be good at talking about his feelings.

XXX

Today is John's birthday

He sits on his bed gazing out of the window. The sun is peeking out over the treetops as it rises to greet the day. John is 18 today. He doesn't want to cry, but today is also the anniversary of his beloved Aunty Clara's death. The stereo in the corner of the room plays the gift she gave him for his 17th. A mix tape, with her favourite songs and some she selected just for John - her messages for him, from beyond the grave.

"_Through early morning fog I see, the visions of the things to be, the pains that are withheld for me, I realize and I can see..."_

the sky is awash with colours. Baby Pink, caramel, african violet, all mixed together with wisps of clouds. John knows it will be another gloriously sunny day. He'll eat his birthday breakfast with his family at the kitchen table (pancakes, bacon and scrambled eggs), then ride his horse in the afternoon, before he gets ready for his date with Nancy later that evening. He's planning to take her down to the boardwalk and ride the Ferris wheel.

"_That suicide is painless, it brings on many changes, and I can take or leave it if I please. The game of life is hard to play I'm gonna lose it anyway..."_

The Beach Boys continue to play on the stereo in the corner of John's room. It sits on a pinewood dresser, with brass handles and old stickers of cartoon characters, faded and peeling off the front of the drawers. Aunty Clara had suggested placing the stickers there. John was going to put them in a book, but she said 'why do that? You'll never look at them in a book!'. He loved her perspective on just about everything. She always managed to surprise him; the mix tape was just another example.

XXX

He'd opened it the day after his 17th birthday. When the news of Clara's suicide was fresh. The message on the outer slieve read 'Happy Birthday, Johnny!'. There was no track list, he'd have to listen to find her other messages. He opened the case, tears rolling down his cheek. _This was the last gift she ever gave me... was it the last gift she ever gave? Was I the last person she spoke to?_ His thoughts tumbled from his destraught mind, and he tried to blink them back. He slid the cassette out of the case. There. On the inside of the slieve. Another message. Written in pink pen, in Clara's artistic scrawl,

"_Don't let them destroy your dreams too." _

He brokedown then. Sat on the floor, genuflecting before the stereo. He cried harder then he imagined anyone could.

XXX

Holland stubbed out his cigarette. He was slightly older than John. A lifetime military man, from a military family. He was well liked by everyone. John remembers that he did a great impression of their old drill sargent. He did have a short temper, but was a fair pilot and a good man.

"Holland..." John began, still stunned.

"That's me, alright. You hit your head Shep?" he laughed.

"It's been... I mean... you look..." eloquant as always.

"Like the last time you saw me?" he grinned.

"Yes and no." Holland looked over at John confused.

"Last I saw you, you were, well, dying in my arms, less than a kilck from base. Also, more recently, but lets not get into that." If Holland was confused by John's words he ignored them.

"Right... well. You don't get sick here. Your breath is always the same. And the chow is incredible." He whispered the last conspiritorially.

Chow? John didn't get any of this. "Holland, look, there's been some kind of mistake. I have no idea why I'm here. I didn't really do anything with my life. I set out with all these idea, and well, they didn't really pan out. I just kinda drifted. What I'm saying here is..."

John swallowed. "What am I doing here?"

"You know I've been wondering," Holland said, rubbing his chin. "The other guys in our unit – did you ever stay in touch, you know after?"

John remembered them all. Could see their faces. Truth was, they had not kept in touch. Not unless they worked together, which didn't happen, since John was exiled to Antartica. War could bond men like a magnet, but like a magnet, could also repel them, too. The things they saw, the things they did. Sometimes they just wanted to forget.

"Nah, not really." He shrugged.

Holland nodded, as if he expected as much.

"And you? Did they court marshal you? Sorry I wasn't there to say something nice."

John smiled. "Yeah, they court marshalled me, but good. Got sent to Antartica to play taxi driver to a bunch of scientists. And Generals." He amended.

XXX

AN: my laptop has decided that i'm portugese so if there are any spelling mistakes I didn't pick up, please let me know.


	6. Chapter 6

Today is John's birthday

_He is 19 years old. The party is in full swing. The dorm he shares with Steven is quite large, certainly big enough for a small birthday celebration. Steven had other idea. What had started as a 'hey, look, it my birthday next Friday, lets get a few cans, get hammered and play cards', had soon developed into an out and out shindig. John stood by his desk, bottle in hand. He took a long, soothing drink and grinned at Steven where he stood, surrounded by girls. Steven might not have been the most handsome guy in the world, but he did have charm. Buckets and buckets full of charm. _

_John could be charming too; at least that's what his girl, Nancy says. They have been dating for two years now. She was there for him when his Aunt died. She held his hand and let him be as open or closed off as he wanted. He chose to be closed. A decision he regretted for years after his marriage broke down. He blames himself for keeping her at arms length. What he'll never know is that she blames herself for letting him. _

_A girl walks over; her hair is blond and shiny. She wishes him happy birthday and touches his arm when she laughs at one of his buddies jokes. He's not interested in the slightest. He's not really listening to anything she says. The music is loud enough that he can ignore her without seeming rude. Thankfully she gets the message and goes to try her flirting with one of the footballers. _

_He's content to listen to the music thumping as he drinks, his cheeks flushed, until someone suggests a drinking game. The vodka comes out and, as the birthday boy, he's instructed to drink shot after shot after shot. _

_XXX_

_He doesn't remember how he got here. Sprawled on his bedroom floor, vomit drying in his hair. He feels like shit. He knows he's supposed to do something this morning but he just can't bring himself to care._

_When Nancy arrives hours later, to take him on his birthday date, Steven lets her in. The dorm stinks of booze, smoke, vomit and sweat. John is in his bed, having crawled there mid-morning. Instead of taking him out to the movies or for a meal, she cleans. She cleans the vomit off the floor. She strips him of his filthy clothes and puts them in the wash. She tries to wash the vomit out of his adorable hair with a damp cloth. _

_Later she settles herself down and snuggles with him. The room smells fresher now. The windows open, the curtains dancing in the light breeze. He whispers "Thank you." as she holds him tight. _

"_Hope you had a good birthday John." She kisses his neck._

XXX

A trapped soldier is a dangerous beast.

John struggles to free himself from his safety straps. That last shot had taken out his tail rotor. His bird's spiralling in a sickening spin towards the ground. Years later, when he tells Rodney about idiotic pilots trying to fix their craft right until they hit the ground, he'll skip the part where he did it too. He impacted on a sandbank. It saved his life. It cushioned the blow, enough that he was shaken, but not really hurt. It also provided him with a little cover from the Taliban searching for the copter they'd just shot down.

He knew they'd be looking for him. Knew he had to get free. His whole body ached. Later the base Doc will find deep bruising along his spinal column, along with myriad of other small injuries. He removes his helmet and radio. It doesn't work now anyways. The last message he'd received was a tight,

"Sheppard, what the hell do you think you're doing?!" from his CO.

"I can't leave him out there, sir! I'll just fly back, pick him up, then…" he didn't get chance to finish his sentence.

"Sheppard!" the radio crackled.

"Can't talk now; busy!" that was the last contact John had with his CO, until he carried Holland's bloodied body back to base, slung over his shoulders. John had collapsed from exhaustion a moment after.

He managed to worm himself free of the mangled metal and broken glass. The heat is overwhelming. He breaks into a sweat and wiped his brow. There's blood on the back of his hand, and he notices that his face stings. There's a shallow cut across his cheek. He shakes his head and moves in the direction he thinks is Holland's last known location. He is wrong. It doesn't matter though, because Holland isn't there anyway. He knows the guys laugh about his sense of direction on the ground. In the air, no one would be fool enough to question him. He's one of the best, and they all know it.

As he emerges from the crash site, a cloaked figure approached him. The man yells behind him and fires his semi-automatic weapon at John. John throws himself to the ground, adrenaline masking any pain the action might cause. He fires. He does not miss, and the man falls. His blood soaks through his clothes and into the sand.

John runs. He's lucky he's fighting the Taliban rather than a professional military unit. They are vicious, determined and plentiful. They are also, fortunately for John, not that organised. It will take them time to decide what to do about the pilot of the downed craft. He hopes that by then, he will have found Holland and be safely within a rescue chopper.

He walked in the general direction he believes Holland to be. There is an old, busted Russian helicopter on the horizon. He tries to radio Holland, and not for the first time, gets static.

XXX

Holland nodded slowly, as he recalls Sheppard coming across the desert, toward him on foot.

"Did you know," Holland said, "that I come from four generations of military?"

John shrugged. He'd guessed Holland's father had been military, from the way the man spoke about him.

"Yep. I knew how to fire a pistol when I was six. In the morning my father would inspect my bed, actually bounce a quarter on the sheets. At the dinner table it was always, 'yes, sir,' and, 'no, sir'.

"Before I joined, all I did was take orders. Next thing I knew, I was giving them!"

"Do you remember that look the new recruits always had? The one that said, they though we knew something about war. Some big secret. They'd salute us, wanting you to tell them what to do. I could see the fear in their eyes. They though you could keep them alive. Hell, I though you could too."

John's shoulders slumped. He did know that look. It was the look that made him work even harder in the field. He didn't want to let them down. Not one of them.

"You couldn't of course. You took your orders, just like I did. Chain of command; there's always someone above you. I liked how you tried to keep us all together. I guess in the middle of a big war you look for the small idea to believe in. when you find it you cling to it, like soldier with a rosary in a foxhole.

"For you, that idea was what you told us. 'No one gets left behind'. It meant a lot to me, and all the others, that you really and truly believed that."

John nodded. He had meant it, every damn time. He was glad that it had meant something to his old friend.

Holland reached into his pocket, took out another cigarette, and lit up.

"Why did you say that?" John asked. It was nice to know, but he couldn't see the relevance.

"Because Shep, you need to know how all this fits together. I don't know what happened to you after I died, but I can guarantee it wasn't good for you," said Holland, as he blew smoke.

John nodded. It had been pretty bad there for a while. The guys at McMurdo were of the Colonel Sumner breed. He didn't bother to tell his CO while stationed there, but the guys could be quite cruel when the mood took them. He'd never admit it, but he hated that base. Sure the snow was great. He did love the snow, it was pretty, but it also reflected the loneliness he felt. The sheer vastness of the snow, the emptiness, it drew him like a moth to light. The late night beatings were altogether less fun. He never knew who they were, hell, for all he knew his CO was one of them. He never spoke up; they beat him, because they didn't understand. All they knew was that he had disobeyed a direct order; disgraced everything they stood for. Secretly, he though he deserved they're anger.

The day he flew General O'Neill to the Ancient outpost, his body was covered with bruises, but his tormentors were always careful to avoid hitting his face. His life changed so much that day. Gone were the hateful glares and mystery beating. Now he was faced with having an ancient gene that allowed him to be of service to the Atlantis expedition.

In a matter of weeks he went from being 'the heinous one', to the military leader in charge of keeping 200 scientists and military personal alive. He became the guy everyone expected to save the day. He was constantly amazed that he usually did.

Holland continued his explanation, "You see it wasn't my life that altered your, but my death. You can't feel guilty for not saving me, or any of the other you couldn't save, because ultimately it was our time to go. The grim reaper came knocking and we answered the door. Nothing you do or don't do can change that.

"People don't die _because_ of you Shep; they die _in spite _of you. Do you see the difference?"

John wanted to argue, but could find no holes in Holland's logic. He did try his damnedest to bring his people home. It just made him sad that sometime his best was simply not enough.

XXX

John looked at his old friend and smiled. He stared out at the barren desert landscape. For the first time he wondered why he was here. "You've been here all this time?" he asked.

"Time," Holland said, "is not what you think." He had another drag of his smoke and said, "Dying? Not the end of everything. We think it is. But what happens on Earth is only the beginning."

John smirked, "you can say that again!"

"You know what I think, Shep? I figure it's like in the Bible, you know that whole Adam and Eve deal?" Holland said. "Adam's first night on Earth right? When he lies down to sleep, he's gotta be bricking it! I mean, he thinks it all over, right? Poor guy, doesn't know what sleep is. His eyes are closing and he thinks, oh well, that's it, right?

"Only that's not it. He wakes us the next morning and he has a whole new day to work with, but he has something else too. He has yesterday."

"You've given this a lot of though, haven't you?" John smiles at his friend.

Holland grins, "yeah, yeah I have, the way I see it, that's what you get here, Shep. You get to make sense of your yesterdays."

He took out another smoke, "You following this? I never was all that good a teaching."

John studied Holland's face. He'd always though of the Captain as a lot older than him, in fact there'd only ever been a few years between them. "You've been here since you died?"

"I've been waiting for you."

John looked down, "that's what the old guy said."

"Well, he was too. He was part of your life, part of why you lived and how you lived, part of the story you needed to know, but he told you and he's beyond here now, and in a little bit, I'm gonna be as well. So listen up. Because he's what you need to know from me."

John straightened in his chair.

XXX

"Sacrifice," the Captain said. "You made one. I made one. We all make them. But you were angry about your. Angry and guilty."

"You didn't get it sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to. Little sacrifices. Big sacrifices. A mother works so her son can go to school. A daughter moves home to take care of her sick father, a man goes to war…"

He stopped for a moment and looked off into the distance.

"They didn't die for nothing you know. Mitch and Dex, they died for what they believed in. they sacrificed for their country, their families, just like me. Just like you. The day I died, it might seem pointless. I got shot down, lost my crew and bird, but we'd just delivered much needed medical supplies and food. We saved lives that day. My death changed your life. How much good have you done since then?"

John shrugged, "Well… I …"

"You don't have to answer, Shep! I know you did good."

"Yeah, but they still died. You still died," said John.

Holland slapped John on the back, "That's the thing. Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else."

Holland unfolded himself from the pilot's chair, and lowered himself out of the plane. John shrugged and follows him outside. The Captain walked over to the field of graves, picked up his helmet, his dog tags and his weapon. He put the tags on, tucked the helmet under his arm, and threw his weapon as hard as he could into the sand.

"I died and you lost something. But you gained something too. You just didn't know it at the time. I gained something as well."

"What?"

"I got to keep my promise and die a hero." Holland held out his palm. "We good?"

John took his friend's hand and shook it. "That's what I've been waiting for."

"Holland, why here? I mean, the old guy said you get to pick anywhere to wait, right?"

The Captain nodded, "because I died in battle. I was killed in this desert wasteland. I left the world knowing nothing but war. War talk, war plans, a war family."

"My wish was to see a world without war. Before we started killing each other."

John looked around, "but this is war."

"To you. But our eyes are different," Holland said. "What you see ain't what I see."

He lifted a hand and the sun baked landscape changed. The old helicopter disappeared, the graves disintegrated the blood soaked sand was replaced by clean, untouched sand. The dead trees came to life, with new leaves and exotic fruits. It was pure, unspoiled beauty.

John looked at his old comrade, whose face was clean, his uniform replaced with a freshly pressed set of dress blues. "This," Holland said, "is what I see."

He stood there for a moment taking it all in. "By the way, I don't smoke anymore, that was in your eyes too. Seriously, why would I smoke in heaven?" he chuckled as he began to walk off.

"Wait," John yelled. "I've got to know something, the girl. Back on the planet, did I save her?"

Holland turned, looked John in the eye for a moment, "I can't tell you."

John's face dropped.

"But someone can. Don't worry Shep." He threw John's tags at him. John caught them, looked at the details that made them unique. When he looked up, Holland was gone.

AN/ if you find any mistakes let me know. can you guess who John'll meet next?


End file.
